2022 Volume 21 Pages 48-54
In April 2020, the Educational Committee of The Japan Sociological Society (JSS) created a devoted section of its website’s homepage titled “Invitation to Sociology.” This was the outcome of a project aimed at drawing high school students into the field of sociology against the backdrop of a declining number of young people choosing to pursue the field and low recognition of sociology among them. The priorities set at the start of the project were as follows: 1) to introduce sociology to high school students in the most comprehensible way possible, 2) to format the content to render easily on smartphones, and 3) to apply a simple construction to the webpage feature to reduce maintenance costs. The author introduces this first trial by JSS and examines what further measures should be taken to convey the appeal of sociology via the internet. Public relations (PR) efforts carried out on the internet may have wider influences but remain shallow in their effects. We should therefore advance a step further with efforts to reach out to high school students in other, more substantial ways. In this paper, the case of “public high school A” participating in the program “Super Science High School” is examined. In this case, every student enrolled in a humanities course is required to choose a research theme from sociological topics such as “work,” “family,” “gender,” or “local society” to be studied over the course of two years. Seemingly, sociologists can cooperate with such a scheme because the teachers in charge do not necessarily have sufficient knowhow or technical skills, though they are highly motivated to produce good results. Besides, considering the present social conditions, more effective and extensive programs should be developed to attract promising high school students toward the future of sociology.
